Breast feeding is a growing global issue as many mothers decide to reduce the necessary period to breast feed more and more in a race to get back to work, and turn to formulas instead.

Health experts maintain that breast feeding is imperative to provide infants with the best possible nutrition in the first days and months and to allows mothers and babies to bond.

A new study from the World Health Organization shows that infant formula ads play a role in reducing breast feeding, and when the ads are limited, more mothers don't use the formula the ads promote, and instead breast feed.

The study found that Filipino mothers who have been influenced by advertisements or their doctors to use infant formula are two to four times more likely to feed their babies with those products.

Among findings in the study released this week, and published by the Social Sciences and Medicine Journal, are that those mothers were 6.4 times more likely to stop breast-feeding babies within one year of age, a move that increases the risk of illness and death for the infant.

The study appears to support the Philippine decision to limit advertising for infant formula, which can sway women away from breast-feeding.

When the Philippine government first attempted to tightened its advertising laws for milk products, the companies took it to court.

In 2007, a Supreme Court ruling upheld the Department of Health's mandate to regulate advertising of breast milk substitutes. It prohibited all health and nutrition claims, but failed to support a full advertising ban, citing freedom of speech.

WHO data shows that exclusive breast feeding rates for Filipinos babies up to 4 months old dropped from 47.3 percent in 1998 to 40.1 percent in 2008 following the ruling.

International health experts say that breast milk significantly reduces infant mortality. These experts recommend that mothers solely breast feed for the first six months and continue breast feeding, supplementing with solid foods, until their babies are 2 years old.